John MacArthur`s Word of God
Back Up Next


John MacArthur's "Sola Scriptura."

1.  The Bible is intended to be the last word on faith, piety, and worship. It is infallible & inerrant and therefore totally authoritative (just like God).
2.  The scriptures were the basis of the early church after the apostles left.
3.  Anyone can interpret the Scriptures for himself or herself without any aid.
4.  When all the documents that make up the Bible were written, the gifts of the Holy Spirit went away -- "The Perfect" (Bible or Love?) had arrived. (1 Cor. 13:8-10) Anyone saying they hear from the Holy Spirit today is only hearing from Satan. (Matt. 12:32)

Wrong. The Bible is the most important document for Christianity.  But it is not the sole authority.  Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit of Truth would lead us into all Truth.  (John 16:7-11) He promised the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  (Mark 16:17-18) He in His humanity depended upon the gifts of the Holy Spirit to minister. (Is. 11:2)  How can we be like Christ without them? (1Jn. 2:6) Jesus Christ considered having two or three witnesses on a matter to be important.  The Logos and the Rhema must agree.

There is an important misunderstanding in most English Bibles.  The English word "Word," comes from "logos" and "rhema" in Greek.  In Matthew 4:4, Jesus uses both meanings for "word."  "But He answered [Satan] and said, "It is written [logos], 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word [rhema] that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"  He was fluent with the Old Testament and the divine guidance from the Holy Spirit.

  In John 5:19, it is written, "Then Jesus answered and said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees (prophecy) the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.'"  In John 8:40, it is written, "But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the Truth that I heard from God (word of knowledge)."  Thus Jesus laid aside His divinity and became limited like a man in all ways.  Thus we can follow Jesus' example of using the gifts of the Holy Spirit He received at His baptism. Jesus was not just using His own divinity to arbitrarily do whatever He felt like.

Did the Rhema of God disappear when the last apostle died? No. Early church history has accounts of miracles and prophecies still happening.

Did the Rhema of God disappear when the Bible was compiled by Emperor Constantine's committee?  No.  But later emperors persecuted us, suppressed the New Testament churches, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, deliverance and even the Bible itself.  We have wrested the Bible back from Satan during the Muslim war.  We are struggling to retrieve the gifts, deliverance and the original church structure right now.

In Evangelism, it is best to leave the Old Testament alone; very few people have become Christians through it.  It has references to a messiah that Jesus fulfilled. It speaks clearly that God wants us to hear Him and obey Him for blessing.  If people try to distract us from the Gospel with arguments about Genesis, tell them that Jesus respected the Old Testament and therefore so do we, because of Him.  Try Jesus.
==========================
The Catholic church taught that truth would be found by the three-legged stool - tradition, the church and reason.  The early Protestants with their new Bibles reacted against this by establishing the Bible, tradition and reason as their source of truth.  Later, in America, the more radical protestants came up with Sola Scriptura, a one-legged stool – The Bible. But if you don't bring reason to it, the Bible is gibberish.

Today, we have a plethora of Protestant "denominations", each of which have their own understanding and emphasis derived from the Bible and reason.  Truly, Sola Scriptura has two legs, one of them glass.  The Catholic's stool has grown a fourth leg about the size of a twig – the Bible. 

The problem was that the Protestants had rescued the Bible – but hadn't resurrected the informational gifts of the Holy Spirit. They were sleeping.  It was the Holy Spirit who the early Christians and church depended upon for guidance & truth.  The religious writings were floating among the churches as well, but it was the Holy Spirit who reigned.

For more information, see this.